


without a single string attached

by brucewaynery



Category: DCU
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Bruce, Clark, and how they communicate through their love languages.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 78





	without a single string attached

**Author's Note:**

> greetings once more! turns out, i also got the superbat brainrot. 
> 
> (title from two by sleeping at last, listen to it to Vibe With unconditional love)

**Words of affirmation**

“Hey, nice job out there, Batman,” Superman says, the first time they fight together. Bruce takes a mental note to do a better background check on him when he gets back to the Cave - he’s already done somewhat of a rudimentary check on him when he first sprung up across the harbour in Metropolis, he’s not a fool. The new hero unsettles him ever so slightly, the all-American honesty-justice-and-truth unnerves him a little. Surely, a guy is only like that if he has something truly nefarious to hide, though he does fit in with Metropolis. Dick tells him he’s being paranoid, that good people can just… exist and  _ be _ without any bad intentions - Bruce rues the day Dick’s seemingly never-ending optimism falters. Alfred just tells him he needs to sleep more, though he’s been telling him that since before he even graduated high school.

Bruce stiffly nods back to Superman, the stiffness out of the design of the suit more than anything else. Superman, undeterred, grins back and passes on the compliment to Dick as well, who smiles back up at him, clearly enamoured. Bruce absentmindedly wonders if he should be having the ‘stranger danger’ conversation with him.

And that’s all there is to say about their first meeting: Superman is kind and sounds vaguely like a midwestern football coach, Batman is characteristically standoffish, and Robin has another hero to look up to.

When they build the Justice League, Bruce comes to accept that he’s just… like that. He tells people what they mean to him and the world at large and what they’re worth when he thinks of the right words with no hesitation or compunctions at all. Bruce can’t decide if it’s out of genuine respect and awe or because he wants to build up the team and one catches more flies with honey, as Alfred is fond of saying. After almost a year of what he’d tentatively call friendship (what Superman would probably not even hesitate to name) and he was still, ever so slightly, suspicious of him.

Working in close quarters with him, seeing him interact with more and more heroes, he does, begrudgingly, admit that Dick was right; Clark is a good, kind person. He’ll, as casually as one tells another the time, congratulate someone on a new move or for improving their skills, even though it’s the bare minimum to keeping oneself alive. It would be exhausting if it weren’t for the fact that it’s clearly effective, they’re both team leader, technically, but Bruce knows for absolute certain that if they were to ever go through something akin to a divorce, all the kids would be on Clark’s side. Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if Dick would choose Clark over him too.

And on top of that, he’s absolutely loath to admit, it’s  _ nice  _ to hear Clark compliment him. He sure as hell doesn’t need it; he’s more than aware of his own worth and capabilities and, if anything, the praise is just going to result in an incurable hubris, which wouldn’t be much help to anyone.

(Bruce has to admit that Clark isn’t that foolish, and it’s not like he’s going around every day being needlessly sycophantic, and there’s a chance that he’s probably blowing it way out of proportion.)

So one day he tries it. Maybe a year after they officially made the Justice League, with an established monitor schedule that’s followed sixty-three percent of the time and one scandal under their belt. On a quiet day with only Barry and Hal hanging around, amongst talks about PR and transparency to the public, Bruce, still dressed in the full, cape-and-cowl suit, stands next to Clark, a little closer than normal and mutters, “Thanks, you do a lot for us.” 

If he’s startled, he doesn’t show it, instead smiles back at him in that small, private smile he keeps shied away from the public at large. If Bruce were to ever be asked, he much prefers this one, no less bright, but smaller, warmer. More human. 

“So do you.” 

They’re speaking quietly, not yet whispering, but low and intimate. Bruce finds that he doesn’t mind it.

The next time, after about another three months of Clark’s unrepentant niceties, they’re on the base of a crumbling spire in Gotham, or, more accurately, Bruce is crouched, half hiding in the shadows, employing military techniques to keep himself balanced and his circulatory system working, listening to Alfred’s updates and Dick’s stream of chatter from his patrol, and Clark is hovering in the air next to him in a darker suit than usual. They’re surveilling a cartel that started in Gotham and managed to make its way across the harbour - usually, Bruce would have had this handled before it made it even turned in the direction of Metropolis, but they were just a little more resilient than he'd anticipated. If he were to be honest with himself, he could probably take them out himself, even without Dick, but Clark respected his territory, the least he could do is respect his. And Alfred had certain compunctions about him taking out entire cartels by himself.

“I… I appreciate you, Clark,” Bruce says, hoping that the modulator disguises any real emotion. They’re friends. Teammates. Sure he could’ve chosen a better time, a time when they’re not about to descend absolute hell upon a part of Gotham’s seedy underbelly, but the imminent possibility of a takedown gave him a good enough excuse to not have to look Clark in the literally-other-worldly eye. It does not escape his notice that this is both, the technique he uses with Dick and somewhat similar to the ‘tough conversation in a car’ method so prevalent in the coming of age movies he claims to not have watched and, as so he is told, in real, non-vigilante, parent-child relationships.

Bruce keeps his eyes trained on the cartel’s hideout, but he can just tell that Clark’s giving him that same, soft smile. How is it that he doesn't even have to see the gentle curve of his pink lips, the way his skin, impenetrable, invincible, gorgeous, folds at the corners of his eyes, the ineffable mural made in his irises of colours and shades as yet unbeknownst to mankind, how is it that he doesn’t even have to bear witness to it with his own eyes for something as mundane and trivial as a smile to have an effect on him?

“I appreciate you too, B,” Clark says, easily, though reluctant to call him ‘Bruce’ when he’s in the suit, even when no one but the man himself can hear.

The litany of praise that falls out of Bruce’s mouth when he fucks into Clark, holding him close, chasing that high, littering kisses across his shoulders, over the back of his neck, behind his ear in between whispered, reverent messages of  _ so good _ ,  _ fuck _ , and  _ Clark _ , doesn’t really count, Bruce thinks, because Clark is barely even listening, after his own high, groans and praise and profanity stumbling out of his pretty, bitten-red mouth.

Does it count as an affirmation of his love and respect for Clark if he’s sex-drunk and driven to near madness with pleasure when he says it?

Does it count if he tells him just how important he is under the cover of darkness when Clark’s as good as dead to the world and Bruce is hit with an inevitable bout of insomnia?

Because he’s almost painfully aware where he is and is not lacking in their relationship. Clark doesn’t even have to use words to compliment him, just give him the same look he gave on the spire, on the roof, after sex, in the morning, in passing at the Hall, in costume, over the dinner table, in front of their peers, in front of Alfred, in front of his kids, without a second thought, without a single hesitation. 

With the curve of his lip, Clark has Bruce weak where he’d thought he was invincible, soft and yielding where he’s fortified over and over until a lesser man would have presumed there was the dark abyss of bitter anguish and resentment under countless miles of protections. He would follow Clark to the ends of the earth without a single question. 

It comes to a surprise to both of them that Bruce is the first one to say  _ I love you _ . Bruce has done a ridiculous number of acts that could be considered ‘brave’, put his body and mind through the metaphorical grinder that is the utterly deplorable Gotham underworld more than any one vigilante has any right to, but this, bearing his soul to a man who could destroy the very Earth they stand on, bearing his soul in such a glaringly overt way, saying  _ here, have me, take me. Love me _ … this is the most terrifying thing he’s ever done.

An age passes as all Clark does is look at him, eyes slightly unfocused.  _ Testing _ , Bruce realises, for inebriation, for a concussion, for toxins. Bruce, impatient and giddy, surges forward and grips the back of Clark’s neck, pulling him close. Clark could easily, so damn easily, escape his grip, turn it around, but he lets himself be pulled, allowing Bruce to manhandle him as he pleases.

“I love you,” Bruce repeats, their lips just brushing, not yet a whisper, but low and intimate and Clark can hear his heartbeat, see his synapses, smell his breath; he knows every word Bruce says is purely him, sincere, earnest, fervent and unfeigned. Bruce presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, on the edge of his growing smile. This close, he can barely see any of him, his eyelashes, a cheekbone, the side of his nose, an errant curl, and he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever been privileged enough to see.

Clark says it back, because he’s been ready to tell him for months now, because he’s far more emotionally in tune with is soul than Bruce, and that night when they fuck– when they  _ make love _ , declarations of their love and amour ring around the room in reverent limerance, like a broken dam and no less overwhelming.

“You love me,” Clark says, light and teasing. The asshole is barely even breathless anymore.

Bruce glares at him with so little heat there’s not even a question of if it’s real, even without the gentle, adoring smile gracing his features, “I would have thought... that was... more than obvious... by now,” Bruce murmurs, through the panting. Clark hums noncommittally before he starts to place small kisses over Bruce’s skin, following the lines of long-healed scars, newer, pink wounds and healing bruises. Bruce summons up enough energy to card his fingers through his hair, absentmindedly tracing patterns over his scalp and tangling his fingers with his curls. 

“I know,” Clark says, simply, and it utterly baffles Bruce. Because of course, Clark should know, but he says it with such finality and confidence the way one would talk about the colour of the sky, to be undoubted, an indisputable fact to be a universally accepted truth. And Bruce… he knows he doesn’t tell him nearly enough, and yet.

And yet Clark knows, like he knows the colour of the sky and the heartbeats of the people he cares about the most. Clark knows. 

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading! leave a comment/kudo if u want
> 
> tumblr: brucewaynery


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